A senior Syrian journalist reports Iraqs WMD located
in three Syrian sites

DEBKAfile Intelligence

6 January 2004

Nizar Najoef, a Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western
Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter
Monday, January 5, to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, that he knows
the three sites where Iraqs WMD are kept. The storage places are:

1. Tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern
Syria. These tunnels are an integral part of an underground factory, built by
the North Koreans, for producing Syrian Scud missiles. Iraqi chemical weapons
and long-range missiles are stored in these tunnels.

2. The village of Tal Snan, north of the town of Salamija, where there is a
big Syrian airforce camp. Vital parts of Iraqs WMD are stored there.

3. The city of Sjinsjar on the Syrian border with the Lebanon, south of the
city Homs.

Najoef writes that the transfer of Iraqi WMD to Syria was organized by the
commanders of Saddam Husseins Special Republican Guard, including General
Shalish, with the help of Assif Shoakat , Bashar Assads cousin. Shoakat
is the CEO of Bhaha, an import/export company owned by the Assad family.

In February 2003, a month before Americas invasion in Iraq, DEBKAfile
and DEBKA-Net-Weekly were the only media to report the movement of Iraqi WMD,
the efforts to bring them from Iraq to Syria, and the personal involvement of
Bashar Assad and his family in the operation.

Najoef, who has won prizes for journalistic integrity, says he wrote his letter
because he has terminal cancer.